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knod edited this page Aug 20, 2019 · 26 revisions

One Way to Hold a Meeting

Let's do this CfB thing!

It's Alive!

This is a living document and an unrefined process. Feedback and contributions welcome!

But Why?

Our goals are to:

  1. Empower folks to have ownership in the project.
  2. Reduce the bus factor. Where possible, no one person should be the sole holder of knowledge or skill for any critical aspect of the project.

Terms (and Conditions)

  • Instigator: Does not require knowledge of code or codebase. Keep the meeting moving, long discussions are for breakout. If you don't have an answer, ask if someone else does.
  • Renderer: Does or delegates these things: Reserve the room, set up conference call stuff. Also, they write on the whiteboard (see template). They count as the Scribe for the full group meeting.
  • Scribe: Keeps track (notes and pics) of what their breakout group is doing and adds that to the google drive 'Meeting Notes' doc (in the shared folder that is pinned to the Slack channel).
  • Jumper: talks to new folks when at orientation. Must be able to ask for help. Knowledge of project helps.
  • Siren: On Saturday, prompts folks to write meeting items in Slack. Example:
@cliffeffects: To keep things moving at the start of the meeting, please respond to this message in the thread:
1. Breakout action items you're already set up to do
2. Breakout discussion items you'd like other people's minds on
3. If you got to work on anything during the week, that goes here (no shade thrown, it's just so people can keep up to date about what's been going on)
4. If you did other fun stuff this week, that goes here
  • The Cage: Meeting time. Sets up stuff for breakout.
  • Breakout: Individual/paired work time.
  • ryh: raise your hand.

Pre-CfB-Announcements (Jumper, Renderer, Instigator)

  1. Jumper: Make sure you can get an alert from Slack about when to go to the orientation room.
  2. Renderer (do or delegate): Reserve room (via the screen by the room's door).
  3. Renderer (do or delegate): Prep conference calling computers. Maybe hide them under the table.
  4. Renderer (do or delegate): Prep whiteboard with (template)?
  5. Instigator: Quickly look at github issues/PRs/Projects, Slack pre-meeting thread, etc, to get a handle on the state of the project.

CfB Annoucements (Instigator)

  1. Instigator: Make announcement with this script.

The Darkest Timeline (Instigator)

The main focus is setting stuff up for breakout, when people can talk about stuff in more detail

  1. Instigator: As people come in tell them, If you want to work on stuff instead of doing the meeting, go ahead and sit at <that end of the table>.
  2. Instigator: Say your name, pass it on to the next person. They should say their name and pass it on.
  3. Instigator: Set up next week's roles. Say, Raise your hand (ryh) if you *won't* be <role> next week. Pick the people, choosing someone who hasn't done that role in a while.
  4. Instigator/Renderer: No deep dives into anything right now. Renderer writes down items the Instigator says, and the people who want to participate in each item.
    1. Write down an agenda/breakout item for this week's roles to talk to next weeks roles if possible. How to do it, what worked this week, what didn't work this week. Maybe go over this HowTo.
    2. Write agenda/breakout items from Slack on board.
    3. Anyone who has *nothing* more to add to the meeting, ryh.
    4. Write whatever new items people bring up.
    5. Go through items and write down who is interested in each item on the board.
    6. Triage the items - pick which ones to do today (and in what order) and which will be done another time.
    7. Assign one person in each breakout group to be a Scribe (see Terms at top). Underline that name on the board. Make sure they have a link to where they should put the notes.
  5. Instigator: Everyone who *isn't* blocked by anything, ryh. Make blocks into breakout items and see if someone can help.
  6. Instigator: Everyone who has something to do during breakout, ryh. For those who don't have anything, see if they can pair up with another person, if they need to pair up with someone to do something they want to do, or if anyone can figure out some other way the person can help.
  7. Instigator: Help folks figure out the order of the breakout items. Things that go first: things that otherwise block individual breakout actions, fast items. Keep in mind: What groupings will conflict with other groupings. Triage: If there are too many items, delay some till another time or outside discussion.
  8. Everyone: Yell, 'Breakout!'. Or just break out into separate tasks.
  9. Instigator: When a breakout item gets finished, help unmoored people find new items. Pop your head up sometimes to check on folks.

Orientation (Jumper)

Project Summary

You'll be on the Slack #general channel and an @here message will come up telling teams to send a member to the orientation room where the new members are.

There you'll line up with other projects and give the project summary when it's your turn: https://github.com/codeforboston/cliff-effects/wiki/CfB-Orientation-Script. Afterwards, pick a spot to meet the folks who are interested. Either find a room to do the initial intro stuff (more details bellow), or come back to the meeting room and find a corner to do that in.

When you get to the room, try to see if people can take a momentary break. Go around the room so everyone can say their name.

Onboarding

tl;dr Discover their goals, see where they can fit, get them connected on Slack, and get them set up to try the demo or get the project. If they have questions you can't answer, or there's something you don't know how to do, note it down and ask the rest group for help later. The instigator could be useful in finding folks to help. More details:

  1. Start with, First, if this project isn't a great fit, no worries at all, there's plenty to do at Code for Boston. If you end up not working on it anymore, no guilt, just let us know. It helps us keep this project on track.
  2. Do you understand what a cliff effect is and what the project is about? If not, engage.
  3. What are your goals and what kinds of things would you be excited to work on? and, after that, What amount of experience do you have with <whatever things they said>? (We don't have any back-end work right now.) If you don't know how exactly where they can fit in, Great! In a bit we'll see what we can find to match you up with. Feel free to note those interests on the whiteboard next to their names. Later, ask folks in the group whether they know how to fit in those interests.
  4. What's the easiest way to reach you? If needed, help them get on Slack and set it up so they can get notifications from Slack through that form of communication. If you don't know how, see who can help them do that later.
  5. (If there's a github repo:) Do any of you want to try out the prototype or set up the project on your local machine? If yes, The github repo has a link to the demo page and set up instructions. A link to the repo is at the top of our Slack page. If you're not on Slack yet, you can find it at https://github.com/codeforboston/cliff-effects. Are you all set, or is there something else you'd find helpful?
  6. If all is good, Great! Let me know if you run into any obstacles.
  7. Go about your business.

The Whiteboard (Renderer)

(pic needed?)

Next Week:              Breakout:
Instigator:             - Meeting role debriefs <names>
Jumper:                 - Item name (names of those interested)
Renderer:               - etc.
Siren:
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